Available November 5th 2012
Blurb
Reagan Hilt is down on her luck after a recent breakup that
leaves her with an expensive wedding to pay for that never even happened. Not
to mention she already has two sisters meddling in her business and a sleazy
landlord knocking on her door. The last thing Reagan needs is a hot guy sniffing
around who may or may not be the father of the teen girl she’s been court
appointed to mentor. He should have been off-limits, and would have been if he
didn’t blow her world away with every one of his kisses.
Reed Morely’s daughter was just dropped in his lap after
his piece-of-work ex-wife kept her from him for years. She’s no longer daddy’s little
girl but a nose-pierced, smart-mouthed teenager. Being a father is suddenly a
full-time job and trying to make up for lost time has Reed attempting to keep
his hands off his daughter’s pretty mentor.
Reagan and Reed have their hands full already, but when
they’re confronted with their pasts, and with the odds stacked against them,
they’re left wondering if they could ever be lucky enough to have it all.
*Special Sneak Peek Excerpt*
“The last time I saw her she’d been an angel,” Reed said
about his now fifteen-year-old daughter Chloe. He was talking to his best
friend, business partner and pseudo-younger brother Tad Dundee. “Now, she’s a …
hellion.”
Tad laughed at his friend. “God, do you remember what I
was like at fifteen? What Chloe’s mom had been like at fifteen? Jesus.” Tad
swore under his breath. “I don’t envy you at all.”
“Callahan’s set to go,” Shea the seventeen-year-old
part-timer announced about their most lucrative customer’s car. Donald Callahan
was the richest man in Whisper Hollow and brought all his cars to R&T
Automotive when he could well afford to take them to the fancier shops in Glenn
Hill, the town over, or straight to the dealer.
“Okay, park it out back,” Tad hollered.
“Reed?”
Reed stood up from underneath the hood of the car he was
working on. His arm was elbow-deep into the engine and getting greasier and
more cut up with every turn of the wrench. “Yeah?” He pulled out of the engine,
wiping his hands on a rag.
“I need to go to the store. Can I take the car?” Chloe
twirled a strand of her dark red hair. She’d put highlights in it and had
somehow made the underside black. She had flawless tanned skin that—God help
him—she liked to show off. Thank goodness it was December. She was tiny and
petite but guys were noticing her, and she was Reed’s constant worry.
“Absolutely not.” Reed laughed, which only gained him
crossed arms and raised eyebrows.
“Why not? I have my permit?” she debated, and it was
really a silly debate.
“Exactly. You have a permit. Not a license,” Reed pointed out.
“I’ll be careful. It’s only a couple of blocks.”
“I’ll take you to the store later. Or you could walk.”
“It’s like eighteen below out there!”
“It’s not eighteen below.” Reed laughed. “You just need to
get acclimatized again. Taking a couple of blocks walk should help you start.”
Reed was holding firm. The law was the law, and he drew the line at breaking
it.
Chloe threw her hands up and groaned in exasperation. “You’re
impossible to reason with.” She went back into the office with a loud slam of
the door and a rattle of the windows.
Tad shook his head. “Reed? She calls you Reed?”
Reed didn’t find anything funny about that at all. He’d
picked her up from the airport Friday night. The whole weekend had been
awkward. Reed hadn’t seen Chloe in three years and not for lack of trying. He
just hadn’t had the funds to fly out to Hawaii often to visit her, and Amanda,
her mother, hadn’t been very accommodating either.
Now that Amanda was getting married she wanted some time
to spend alone with the guy. So she’d shipped Chloe to Michigan to her father.
The plan was that Chloe would go back home after summer vacation, after Amanda
and Jason were “settled.”
He’d been so excited to see her. She used to be his
shadow. He’d had the perfect, adoring, mild-mannered daughter. Reed’s sweet
little princess had pierced her nose and had begun calling him by his first
name.
“Yeah.” Reed rolled his eyes. “Her first night home, I
take her out to that place down on Rochester in Glenn Hill, with the peanut
shells you toss onto the floor.”
“Randall’s Roadhouse?” one of the other mechanics working
on another vehicle supplied.
“Yeah, Randall’s, and while she’s in the bathroom, I do
something nice for her. I remember what her favorite used to be and I order it
for her. I get her the steak and sweet potato for the side instead of fries,
and I get it loaded with marshmallows and bacon like she likes.” Reed stops and
still in bewilderment shakes his head. “She comes back to the table. They bring
us the food and she throws a fit. Apparently she’s a vegetarian and she doesn’t
just refuse to eat the steak and order something else, she doesn’t want to eat
at all anymore. ‘Lost her appetite’ apparently and she demands I take her home
or she’s going to make a scene.”
“Well, what’d you do?” Tad asked.
“I took her home.”
“How’d you think you’re doing there, Pops?” Tad grinned
ear to ear, obviously enjoying Reed’s agony.
Before Reed could answer him there was a loud boom.
Reed threw the hood down, shot Tad a look, and he and the rest of the mechanics
hurried out the back to get a look at what was happening in the parking lot.
Shea the part-timer was pacing back and forth in front of
Reed’s smashed truck, giving Chloe the tongue-lashing of the century. Seeing
his rear end muddled with Callahan’s front end he couldn’t decide if he wanted
to cut Shea off and take over himself or start ripping into Shea for talking to
his daughter like that.
Chloe had her hands on her hips, and Reed fought back a
grin. She sure was no shrinking violet. She was digging him an early grave, and
he could feel the gray hairs sprouting up out of his head, but he doubted he’d
ever have to worry about his daughter being a doormat.
“How do I think I’m doing?” Reed looked over at an ashen-faced,
slack-jawed Tad and said with only a quarter of the sarcasm he felt, “Just
fine.”
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